Directors Address Blu-ray’s Advantages at CES

Filmmakers Baz Luhrmann, Michael Mann and Oliver Stone showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show Jan. 7 to sing the praises of Blu-ray Disc on a panel presented by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment at the Panasonic booth.

While acknowledging the future of digital delivery, Stone said the growth of multitasking and watching films on a small screen in improper light “is depressing to people like me.”

“Blu-ray is the last of the best hardware,” he said, noting the format’s value in preserving films.

Like comic books and baseball cards, Blu-ray will be valuable to collectors in the future, he said.

“Go against the grain — collect!” he said. “[Blu- rays] will be worth a lot in 2050.”

Stone, Mann and Luhrmann all praised the detail and color offered on Blu-ray.

Mann said the format shows his film The Last of the Mohicans “right, down to the braiding of the officer’s coat.”

While this sort of detail may not seem important, he said, “The brain is perceiving something you are not consciously aware of.”

Luhrmann said Blu-ray made it possible to preserve and perfect the MGM musical technicolor effect he intended in Moulin Rouge.

Stone praised the green of Central Park in Wall Street and the detail of the water in Money Never Sleeps achieved on Blu-ray.

Luhrmann said his team is involved in producing the Blu-ray, “right down to the menus.”

He compared extras to having a deeper relationship with “a great friend.”

“Great movies are like people,” he said. “You want a deeper relationship.”

He cautioned, however, that the new detail afforded by Blu-ray can be problematic, noting that the strings holding up the monkeys in The Wizard of Oz became apparent in the Blu-ray restoration process. That requires a judgment call when the director is unavailable, he said.

“Some Blu-rays can make that friend look like he's had too much surgery,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys doing commentaries.

“It’s the last shot we have [to give the director’s point of view] and make your peace,” he said.

View images from this panel discussion, as well as others from CES 2011, at www.homemediamagazine.com/gallery/880/600/580.